The post-play-off summing up was something of an understatement. “It’s been a long time coming,” said Jason Day after winning the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines yesterday.
The Australian may have been referencing the fact that this was his first win since 2016 but the actual process of completing this particular triumph made the progress of the Pilgrims look like the 100 yard dash.
Day and Sweden’s Alex Noren had fought out a stalemate during five holes of the play-off on Sunday evening and could not be separated. Play was suspended due to the darkness, an issue not helped by the final three-ball taking some six hours to complete the closing round prior to the additional holes.
The four minutes and 10 seconds that it took to hit a shot at the 18th by JB Holmes, who was in that final group, brought withering condemnation from players, pundits and the paying public alike.
By all accounts, the four-minute warning to herald a nuclear attack would’ve been marginally more popular than Holmes’s painfully slow period of pondering.
It required just 13 minutes for Day to put the tin lid on his win yesterday which gave him a first title since his The Players’ Championship victory some 20 months ago.
When Day and Noren returned to resume their stand-off and play the par-5 18th yesterday in the shoot-out, it was the Swede who blinked first.
Noren, who has won nine times on the European Tour but was seeking his maiden win on the PGA Tour, plunged an approach into the water and that was, effectively, that.
It was hard for Noren, who had performed admirably over four tough days even if the blinkered US commentators had virtually no idea who he was.
The previous night, he had to twiddle his thumbs and mull things over for an eternity as playing partner Holmes embarked on his four minute faff as affairs trudged on at a torturous rate.
Noren, needing a birdie to win, was left to stew over his own approach from some 230 yards amid Holmes’s act of self-indulgent indecision.
For Day, this long overdue win ended a largely forgettable few months. Injuries have not helped the former world No 1’s progress while the personal anguish brought on by his mother’s battle with cancer and his wife’s miscarriage has weighed heavily.
“I know last year wasn’t the best year for me,” said Day, who has jumped back into the world’s top-10 after the 11th PGA Tour win of his career.
“I had some stuff off the course that was a little distracting. But I worked hard in the off-season to get back into this position.
“My goal was always to get back to being the world No 1 and this is a good start in the right direction.”
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